


hold with those who favor fire

by betony



Category: Iron Man (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Marvel Universe cameo, Poetry, Post-Iron Man 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-03
Updated: 2014-02-03
Packaged: 2018-01-11 00:42:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1166557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/betony/pseuds/betony
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pepper, in the first few days after. Tony helps, despite his best efforts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	hold with those who favor fire

Tony leads her to a hotel; honestly, he could lead her into the depths of hell right now, and she’d follow him. She thinks she already has. As they stagger along, he whispers in her ear a steady litany of: “Pep, don’t worry, we’ll fix this, we can fix this. I’m a genius, remember?” 

Pepper remembers, all right, just like she remembers that it was Tony calling out the Mandarin— _on public television!_ —that caused this mess in the first place. But that’s not fair. Both she and Tony brought this upon themselves years before that brash announcement, Tony when he stood Killian up on a rooftop thirteen years ago, Pepper when she turned in her two weeks notice having successfully dodged Mr. Aldrich’s repeated offers to get a drink with him sometime. 

(“I want to be more than just a secretary, Mr. Aldrich,” Virginia—not Pepper, not yet—says carefully. “This new accounting job isn’t much, but it’s at least what I went to school to study.” 

Aldrich droops. It would be pitiable if it wasn’t so pathetic, but Virgina can’t seem to bring herself to care. The intent, fascinated way he studies her—as though she were something delicate and dead in amber—makes her skin crawl in a way that, later, Tony’s never-ending leers and come-ons never will. “And you don’t think you’ll regret this someday? Saying no to A.I.M.? Saying no to me?” 

Virginia pauses, considers her options, and, with the recklessness of those who know that come what may, they will never set foot in this building again, says; “Nope.” 

The next day, she’s being oriented to Stark Industries’ finance department. Six months and one correction to the boss’s arithmetic later, she’s Tony Stark’s personal assistant, the famous, and very well-compensated, Pepper Potts. She never looks back. 

She goes out of her way to avoid Killian Aldrich whenever she accompanies Tony to conferences, though. She doesn’t care to find out what his thoughts on the relative merits of glorified babysitter versus secretary might be.) 

Killian’s responsible for this, not Tony, not her. She has to keep telling herself that. 

“We’ll fix you,” Tony repeats, so urgently she wonders who he’s trying to convince. 

By now, she finds she doesn’t even care. All she really wants is a shower. 

She gets one. 

To her relief, the water doesn’t immediately steam off the instant it touches her skin or anything ridiculous like that. Pepper, who half-imagined herself taking the whole building into flames with her the minute she allowed herself a moment of peace, sags with relief. 

There’s that. At least there’s that. 

_Oh, God,_ Pepper thinks, and cries. 

* * *

A day and a half into her refusing to touch him, Tony decides this is bullshit. By _decides_ she means he snaps: “Potts, this is bullshit” and, in the absence of a garage to stalk to, retreats onto the balcony instead. She can see him through the glass, pacing back and forth like a caged tiger, pulling out his cell phone one moment and putting it back up the next. When he comes back inside, he has to slide the door open himself. Back home, JARVIS would have done it without waiting for a command. Back home doesn’t exist anymore. 

Half an hour later, the doorbell rings. Tony is passed out on the bed, having stayed up almost until dawn the night before working on a series of complicated formulas Pepper guesses has something to do with Extremis, which means Pepper has to get it. 

“Mr. Storm,” she says as soon as the door opens, professionalism overriding her very real complaint that dealing with Johnny Storm—a younger, more impulsive Tony who has the unfortunate habit of tagging along with his sister and brother-in-law at scientific conferences—without the defenses of alcohol or at least an aspirin, isn’t really something she’s up to right now, “what a pleasure to see you again.” 

“Hey, Miss Potts,” says Johnny, cracking his gum, “Tony called and said you wanted to speak to me about getting turned into the Human Torch-ette?” 

“Tony would,” Pepper says through gritted teeth, but she lets him in. 

* * *

“So,” Tony says that night, his smile wide and innocent, “heard you had a visitor.” 

Pepper blinks up at him from where she’s sprawled on the sofa, idly rubbing her temples. Johnny Storm had been every bit as tangential and irresponsible as she remembered, but he had meant well. When she'd kissed his cheek when seeing him out, her thanks had been genuine. Tony's expression is expectant, though, and Pepper knows she either has to convince him that one visit from the Human Torch has done away with all her misgivings about her condition or at least give him the gratification of complaining about his meddling . She chooses a third option. 

Clearing her through, Pepper begins her best impression of adolescent officiousness: “ _It’s all ‘bout control, Miss Potts, like when you see a hot girl and_ —Tony, don’t laugh!” Tony’s shoulders shake, but he’s not interrupting, and Pepper takes that as sufficient encouragement to continue. “It’s not that I don’t appreciate the effort, Tony, but—“ 

Tony grunts, settling himself on the floor beside her sofa. “But what?” 

Stubbornly, he reaches towards her to wind his hand through hers. Pepper draws in a quick, startled breath, but when no conflagration occurs, she lets herself relax, slowly, terror giving way to irritation. She can’t imagine why he can’t seem to understand the gravity of the situation, even after he spent day after nightmarish day hunted by Extremis-enhanced soldiers. Even JARVIS comprehended the threat she presented, back on the oil rig in Miami, and sent a suit hurtling to destroy her. 

But Tony dreams of soaring up into cold, rather than tumbling into fire; his fingers were always cool against her skin, even before Extremis burned through her veins. They used to call him the Merchant of Death. He’s both the only one who can understand, and the one least likely to. 

Tony follows her gaze to their entwined hands, and this, it seems, is one of their moments of harmony, where he can know her thoughts from only the curve of her mouth, the crinkles around her eyes. “If you start quoting Robert Frost at me,” he warns, “I can’t be held responsible for my actions.” 

Pepper laughs. “The wit and wisdom of Johnny Storm hasn’t rubbed off on me that much,” she tells him gently. Nevertheless, whether it’s Johnny’s earnestness (he is held together by fire, just as she is now, and he hasn’t hurt anyone yet) or Tony’s constancy (and only a few years ago, who would ever have thought to put those two words together?) or merely her own determination to not let Killian have even this one victory over her, she dares to stretch out a hand and wind it through Tony’s hair, murmuring: “ _Now let the night be dark for all of me. / Let the night be too dark for me to see / Into the future. Let what will be, be._ ” 

But Tony, who Pepper knows skipped most of his high school English classes in favor of advanced physics, only hums in approval and reaches up to kiss her. She closes her eyes and lets it be.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Fire and Ice" by Robert Frost, of course. Pepper's final quotation is from "Acceptance" by Robert Frost. Initially posted to my Tumblr; edited and expanded for posting here.  
> Obviously, this is the fic that most of fandom wrote (with far more talent and skill!) six months ago; I can only hope this one belated entry isn't _too_ repetitive.  
>  Finally, Johnny Storm as he is here isn't from the earlier _Fantastic Four_ movieverse continuity but rather in an MCU-compliant Fantastic Four envisioning that mostly exists in my imagination.


End file.
